Mars and Crab Nebula Conjunction last night

Last night was incredibly clear here in County Cavan with a steady (and very cold) north breeze, but this shot was worth the effort ! The Planet Mars and the Crab Nebula M1 were very close together, less than a degree, so I set up my GOTO CG5 mount and after a lot of time polar aligning, I mounted my Celestron C80ED refractor with my Canon 400D and set about the task. At 12 midnight, I could see the Planet Mars clearing the Northeast horizon, a blazing orange sight at magnitude 0.2. I fired off 20 exposures at ISO 1600 for 45 seconds each to capture the Supernova Remanant the Crab Nebula M1, and at magnitude 9 in contast to the brightness of Mars, it was quite a challenge!

I eventually could only use 11 frames due to wind, in addition to 10 dark frames all stacked in Deepsky Stacker. Finally, I just done some Minor adjustments in Photoshop, and this is the result. What a difference the APO glass in the C80ED makes. Maybe I'm the first in Ireland to get this??

I hope you enjoy it...I'm pleased with it.
Keith..

A lovely pair there, a nice catch!

Bart.

Great shot Keith - I have it in a widefield (M1 marked in blue) taken Monday AM at 0400 or thereabouts (ouch!) which gives an idea of the scale!

Very nicely done lads!
So I wasn't the only madman out at that time last night so!!

Very nice keith well done

Great images lads, its nice to see good pics of the crab again. looking forward to seeing it at the WSP.